Jill Johnson “Nightshade”: Greens of Doom

“Kissing mouth flower” will be the one Psychotria elata popularly known, we learn – like many other things in the field of plant science – from this crime novel. Anyone who googles the plant will see at first glance that the name is justified (a bit of useless knowledge: one of its English nicknames is “Mick Jagger’s Lips”).

Eustacia Rose, the not entirely reliable and also autistic first-person narrator of the novel, has the habit of giving people plant names based on their characteristic characteristics. “Psycho”, just after that one Psychotria elata, she calls, just for herself, an attractive young woman whom she observes through a telescope from her roof garden.

Ever since Eustacia, actually a professor of botany, was suspended from her university job because of an unclear incident, her entire meaning in life has been in this roof garden, which is unique because it contains what is probably the largest private collection of poisonous plants in all of London.

Eustacia stays away from people and only takes part in the lives of others through the telescope – until she discovers the beautiful “Psycho” with her plant-like full lips and the desire to get to know the desirable becomes overwhelming. So Eustacia goes out into the human world, and disaster ensues.

Not decorative greenery, but poison

The fact that disaster can come not only from people but also from plants is often overlooked. Eustacia, however, constantly recognizes dangerous substances where other people only see decorative greenery and, even when visiting a café, cannot resist warning the waitress about poisonous plants that seem to be harmless in the immediate vicinity of food.

But it is precisely the fact that the obsessed botanist is such a proven expert in her field that makes her a suspect when a murder actually occurs: Jonathan Wainwright, a former, not very likeable university colleague, dies from a substance that is normally very difficult to obtain, but is contained in a plant that grows in Eustacia’s roof garden.

And while the poison gardener has to justify herself to the police, a break-in occurs in her sacred realm in her absence. In addition, the beautiful psycho, with whom Eustacia has now become friendly, seems to have been kidnapped, but plays an obscure role in the increasingly confusing events. An important trail leads to Brazil. And finally a person from Eustacia’s past appears with whom she is still dealing unfinished business gives …

Relaxing bedtime crime read

“Nightshade Family” is bizarre in a very British way and relies heavily on its original main character and her special view of the world. In the “upscale entertainment novel” category, the novel cuts an extremely good figure. As a crime or suspense novel, it works rather mediocre compared to the genre, as there is little potential for surprise in the sometimes convoluted plot, but it is ideal as a relaxing bedtime crime read.